A-Infos (en) Day of action: occupiers charged

["Smoke Peregrine" <smokeperegrine@hotmail.com>]

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Press release of 12/2/98, posted in French 17/2/98.
Eventually translated by smokeperegrine@hotmail.com 22/2/98

Summary:  Occupiers of bosses association offices have been removed.  
Occupation was over MAI.  Some occupiers still detained at time of 
communique'.
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PRESS RELEASE
For immediate diffusion
Thursday 12 Feb. 2:30am

OCCUPIERS REMOVED... THROUGH A HOLE IN THE WALL!?! CPQ, Montreal, 
Quebec.   The group of about a hundred students and citizens from 
different backgrounds who, since 1:00pm, had been occupying the offices 
of the Quebec employers' council (le Conseil du Patronat du Quebec) have 
just been searched and arrested, then let go again (except for a few 
still detained).  The occupiers had decided in a General Assembly to not 
leave the building until they had got an official reply to their demands 
from the regional and national governments, demanding a Canada-wide 
referendum over the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, decent 
education for all, and constitutional recognition of the right to strike 
and to demonstrate.
   The police had to saw their way through the wall to get to the 
occupied areas.  The technical section of the SPCUM as well as the dog 
squad surrounded the occupiers and carried out massive arrests of 
non-violent activists, who are accused of misdemeanors.  Some acts of 
police brutality and people being forced to give confidential 
information took place.  The anti-riot squad had a large presence, and 
got ready to disperse the vigil made up of about a hundred people 
supporting the occupants.  At 2:00am the occupiers and the vigil left 
for 980 Guy where two or three occupiers were being held.
   Just like the 108 people arrested at Reine-Elisabeth, the men and 
women who occupied the CPQ are indebted students, claimants, workers in 
unstable jobs, or quite simply citizens fed up with seeing wealth and 
power concentrate in the hands of an ever-shrinking number of large 
companies, speculators and finance experts.
   "In the face of the dominant view put forward which justifies 
privatizations, deregulation and savage cuts in social programmes in the 
name of the great god Competition, what power do citizens have left when 
all of the political parties and the media are projecting this single 
vision as being inevitable?" asks Mike Brophy, a sociology student at 
UQAM.
   "How can we collectively develop social alternatives when all 
movements that challenge the system are crushed by repression of 
ever-growing severity, without even being allowed a public voice?"

   Repression also finds a judicial expression, as is demonstrated by 
the systematic use of special laws against trade unions that want to 
keep what they have gained.
   "However, the current situation is just a foretaste of what the 
Multilateral Agreement on Investment has in store for us, whereas 
government will have to guarantee the stability of investments, agreeing 
to insure --for at least twenty years-- investors' profits against (...) 
states of emergency, revolution, insurrection, civil unrest or other 
events like that (...) --clause 3.1 of the MAI." explains Anna 
Kruzynski.
   "The MAI will drastically reduce civil liberties and what little 
people's power we have left.  The struggle is just beginning!"


For further information, contact Mike Brophy (sociology student at UQAM) 
on (514) 249-3007.

--ANNA KRUZYNSKI
Chair of the Canadian Federation of Students, Quebec component
French-speaking Students' Representative, National executive, CFS
Telephone (514) 398-1600
Facsimile (514) 398-1862
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* EDUCATION IS A RIGHT ! *
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---End of translated press release---

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